Drown Me In Love
by MeredithBrody
Summary: Meredith Brody has been away from her home and the man she loves for far too long. (Prody, post-s2)


_So, this is a bit of a weird one. I was listening to this song tonight and I couldn't resist writing this. There is implied sex in the last section, but nothing graphic (hence why I categorised this the way I did). I'm not really sure when I'm going to get back to my other ongoing works but I promise they are all on their way! The end of the year this year has been so busy! Anyway, the title and lyrics are from the song "Come On, Get Higher" by Matt Nathanson. Please read and review._  
 _Shin xx_

* * *

 _ **I miss the sound of your voice**_  
 _ **And I miss the rush of you skin**_  
 _ **And I miss the still of the silence**_  
 _ **As you breathe out, and I breathe in**_

Meredith Brody found herself pulled back here, every time she missed the home that she'd grown she didn't call any of the others. She didn't even tell anyone else she was still in the state. She desperately missed them all, but she couldn't see them. She felt like they'd be far too disappointed in her. She had run out on them all without any explanation, and that wasn't something that could be forgiven all that easily.

Pride had been the only one who knew where she was, and originally that had only been because she had needed his reference to get a new job. He had supported her and had never pushed anything. Had told her all about what happened there. Then three months after she'd left she'd be missing him more than she could have ever imagined missing anyone other than Emily. She had missed his voice, when he was ordering her to do something on a scene, or when he was trying to get something out of her.

She'd missed his touch too, and that was a new one for her. She didn't let people touch her, but Pride had somehow always been an exemption to that. Everyone else had to wait for her to act, even her partners, but Pride she'd just always allowed. Whether it was a hand on her back to guide her around something, or those shoulder squeezes he'd give her to prove that he was supporting her.

Even though it was so minor, something she'd never thought about when they were partnered, she missed the silence of their car rides. Where all they could hear was each others breathing as they thought about the case they were working, or one of their various personal issues. The longer she was away the longer she'd missed all of that. So that night she'd gone there and they'd needed up in his bed. She still didn't know how that had escalated, but it wasn't wrong anymore, they didn't work together. But come the morning they'd agreed it was a mistake.

 _ **I miss the sound of your voice**_  
 _ **The loudest thing in my head**_  
 _ **And I ache to remember**_  
 _ **All the violent, sweet, perfect words that you said**_

Now though, it was a little more than three months on and it was Christmas. That had brought another wave of nostalgia to her, and even though she and Pride text every day, and they spoke once a week, she was finding herself missing his voice again, and it was all she could hear echoing around in her mind. If she had had plans for Christmas she probably would have been able to forget it for a while, to think of something else, but she couldn't. She wasn't even on call, so there wasn't going to be a call to a case to distract her.

The last time they had spoken, she and Pride had shared their ideas for Christmas. He had given his team the day off, and he was going to be alone too, thought he mentioned that Loretta had invited him to spend it with her and the boys. Laurel was with Linda, and she knew that that was killing him. As for her, she'd admitted that she didn't have any plans. For the last two years she'd spent Christmas with him and their team. This year she could have gone to see her parents, but she hadn't wanted to. She'd wanted to be with him.

As dusk fell on Christmas Eve she gave up trying to pretend she wasn't lonely. She gave up pretending that she wasn't aching to go home, not just to the city but to King. She felt like she could hardly breathe without him today, and she was trying to remember every excuse they'd made for why they couldn't be together. Why it was a bad idea, and why they wouldn't work out even if they tried. At the time they'd been perfect, but now she wasn't so sure. Now she missed him so deeply that she'd do anything to see him.

So she jumped in the car, and an hour and a half later she was pulling up on the curb outside the office. hoping desperately that he hadn't left and stayed at Loretta's. Thankfully Roy was on the gate, and he didn't say a word, just smiled and let her through. He was the only other person who'd seen her in the last few months, and he kept it secret. She knew that he did. When she could still smell the faint tang of cooking she knew that King was here, so she just walked up to his room, then knocked on the door. The abrupt ending to the gentle music that had been drifting around the room told her that he was there, and he'd been playing his piano, just like he always did when he was stressed.

 _ **I miss the pull of your heart**_  
 _ **I taste the sparks on your tongue**_  
 _ **And I see angels and devils and God**_  
 _ **When you come on, come on, hold on.**_

All she could do was listen intently as she heard the footsteps across the floor, and he didn't even look through the glass on the door before he pulled it wide open. He then froze and just stared at her for a moment before pulling him to her. Her hand stopped on his chest, and she could feel his heart beneath her fingers, the steady rhythm reminding her of what else she'd been missing recently. Her heart pulled hers in the moment they were close, and that was something that she'd never be able to replicate.

The moment she tilted her head toward his, their lips joined and Merri almost couldn't breathe from the intensity of it. Had he maybe been sat here thinking about her too? She didn't know for sure but something had prompted this kind of reaction from him. She wasn't sure whether or not that was a good thing, but it made her feel so much better about driving here in the middle of the night. There had always been chemistry between them, she'd known that, but here she could almost taste it when their tongues brushed each other, and that was enough proof to tell her this was the right choice.

When she eventually pulled away from his lips she paused, taking a long, deep breath before she even tried to speak. That kiss had taken her breath away in more ways than one. He rested his forehead against hers as they both just took a moment to catch their breath, their breathing evening out to be in sync as usual. She breathed in as he breathed out. "Merry Christmas, Dwayne." She whispered after a few minutes, then remembered what she'd been annoying all her new team with for over a week. "Or should I say, Merri Christmas." She grinned, knowing that he hated puns, but she loved that part of having her nickname.

"I can't believe you're here." He ignored her pun, and her greeting. Seeming to need to focus on the fact that she was really there, his hands moving over her bare arms, across her shoulders and up her neck. Trying to keep proving to himself that she was there with him, and she could understand why. After her disappearance in May and her reappearance in July he'd been the one to take it hardest. Now she wanted to never leave him again. "I thought we said we were going to keep our distance."

"We were wrong. You know that as well as I do." That was the only thing she could take out of any of this, that they made the wrong decision all those months ago. They were still together almost all the time, and neither of them ever actually moved on from each other. She looked at people now and she compared them to him. Nobody ever lived up to what he had offered her. That was part of her problem, and why she had an inability to actually consider spending her time with anyone else. She felt too much for King, and she didn't want to go back to Baton Rouge without knowing this was still home, and that she still had him. "I think I love you and, I think you love me too."

 _ **If I could walk on water**_  
 _ **If I could tell you what's next**_  
 _ **I'd make you believe**_  
 _ **I'd make you forget**_

He seemed less sure of himself than she was, but he hadn't moved from where his forehead was pressed to hers as they spoke. Neither of them was moving more than their arms, she was just stroking her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, while he had settled his on her hips, holding her close to him still. "I'm not sure what I feel, Merri. I love you but..." There was always a but, she knew that. This time she was fairly sure that it wasn't going to necessarily be a negative this time. "All I know is that I miss you more than I've ever missed anyone. More than Linda, more than Laurel…" That was saying it all to her, he missed her more than his daughter and she missed him more than anyone.

"I understand, because I feel the same." She did miss him more than Emily, maybe because she knew that Dwayne was alive, that he was within her reach when she had held herself away from him. There was a pain there that she had never really known how to explain, but if she could even guess at it then it was a better explanation that what she normally gave herself. Right now, she just wanted to make a relationship work, and she wanted him to be on that with her. "Maybe we're not the perfect couple but I learnt from James that that isn't always what we need.

"What if something went wrong, I can't imagine losing you." The raw emotion in his voice took her by surprise, and as she swallowed a deeper breath she willed the tears that had sprung to her eyes away. Closing them she just took another moment to steady herself, and she was fairly sure that he was doing much the same. She lifted a hand to stroke his cheek softly, running a thumb over his lips, and she felt him gently kiss her thumb as she brushed it over for a second pass.

"You won't. Neither of us will because we're stronger than that." Their partnership had made it through more than either of them could have imagined. "All I can remember is when you were on that riverboat. Russo's bomb…" She had to stop and swallow the bile that had jumped into her throat as she'd managed to say his name for the first time in months. "That's how I know we'd survive anything the universe threw at us." She was certain of that, because they had already survived so much between the two of them. They had come through everything in the two years since she'd arrived here, and in the seven months she'd been gone they still kept in contact as best they could.

"I wish I could make you forget all about Russo." He admitted quietly, and that tugged even further at her heart. She needed to forget him, because she would never be able to forgive him. King knew more than anyone how damaged she had been before that. He'd seen her while they were working Emily's case, he'd been the one beside her for the Moultrie investigation too. He knew that she hadn't needed another betrayal, yet that's what she'd gotten. "Forget everything he did to you, forget everything he said. Forget that he was even here to begin with."

"You can." She said simply then leant in to kiss him again, starting to move them backwards into his room and kicking the door closed behind them. She needed him to make her forget, just like she needed to make him believe that this was going to be something that she could do. They had waited too long to have this conversation, and this was definitely a conversation that needed to happen without words. They needed to be focused purely on each other, and this was the easiest way for that.

 _ **So come on, get higher**_  
 _ **Loosen my lips**_  
 _ **Faith and desire**_  
 _ **In the swing of your hips**_  
 _ **Just pull me down hard**_  
 _ **And drown me in love**_

Neither of them wasted any time in helping the other drop clothes across the room. They'd at least be easy to find in the morning when she'd need to go and get something out of her car. His fingers gliding along her skin reminded her exactly why they had thought of it as a bad thing the first time around. There were trails of fire following his movements, and she knew that this was going to be what made them or what broke them. She was fairly sure that it was going to be the former, because she wasn't willing to give him up. Merri had lost too many things that mattered to her for her to give up on this without more of a fight.

At that moment she was lowered to the bed and conscious thought stopped. Moving on pure instinct she managed to just focus on the man above her, following the lines of his body as they crashed together. It was just as perfect as she remembered it being, and as she pulled him in to her she heard exactly what she'd hoped that she'd hear. His whispered declarations in her ear that he wanted to work on this too. The proof that their partnership had brought them both to a place where this had been inevitable. That was what she knew more than anything.

As she was driven to the edge she just kissed him deeply, needing to feel all of him as they rode it all out together. As they started to calm she just smiled and followed their breathing, the same routine as always. It actually made her laugh when she realised that they'd fallen back into that. Instead of asking her about it he just rolled to one side and pulled her into his arms, kissing any Expanse of skin he could reach as he did. "Don't leave me this time, Merri."

"Never." She knew that she'd need to go back to Baton Rouge, to try and arrange a transfer back down here, but she knew this was where she needed to be now. She needed to be here with Dwayne. She'd work through the issues the others would have, because being here with him was far more important to her. This was where she belonged, where she was loved and cherished, and the first place that she wasn't alone any longer. This was her home, and she would forever come back to it. "I'll always come home."


End file.
